Saturday, November 30, 2013

Why China is fixated on the Moon: The Moon is so rich in helium-3, which is a possible fuel for
nuclear fusion, that this could "solve human beings' energy demand for around 10,000 years".

The rape that energized the ELM: While several national channels flashed news of the alleged "gangrape" and murder of a 30-year-old woman in Assam, the post-mortem report and her husband's statement prove that there was no sexual assault on her.

Up to now the Obama Administration has faced three big scandals-the IRS, the bugging of AP and Fox, and Benghazi. And now here is scandal Number 4:

For the last four years the Obama Administration has conducted a major "outreach" program to Islamic groups in the United States and in the Middle East. Patrick Poole has been investigating this project and in a comprehensive article now presents the full scoop and scope of what's been going on. His article, "Blind to Terror: The U.S. Government's Disastrous Muslim Outreach Efforts and the Impact on U.S. Policy" in the new, Summer, issue of MERIA Journal is a gamechanger

You may think that you know about this subject but it goes far beyond what you have heard about. The majority of groups and individuals promoted by the Obama Administration have been radical Islamists, particularly Muslim Brotherhood cadre, and more than occasionally people involved in terrorist activity.

Moderate Muslims have been neglected and isolated by this project which has helped the radicals, Islamists, and pro-terrorists gain hegemony in the Muslim community in America.

Again, you may think that you know this story but it is far more extensive than has ever before been revealed. Often, the White House and FBI have granted access and worked with those who were simultaneously being investigated on serious charges of terrorism.

The whole "outreach" program has been a farce and it would be charitable to describe it as incompetent on the part of the Obama Administration. Patrick Poole pulls all of the material together for the first time and shows serious flaws that have endangered Americans in scores of cases.

Radicals have been given credentials as moderates, been provided with information that should have remained secret, been allowed to advise and influence U.S. policy. The kind of government mishandling of terrorist threats that characterize the Fort Hood case and the Boston bombing has been business as usual.

The results of this investigation should be a serious embarrassment for the Obama Administration and should be distributed as widely as possible. Here is a portion of Patrick Poole's article:

"When President Obama hosted his annual Iftar dinner in August 2010 to commemorate the Muslim celebration of Ramadan, the list of invitees published by the White House was curiously missing the names of several attendees - all of whom were top leaders of organizations known to be purveyors of jihadist ideology and implicated by federal prosecutors in financing terrorism.

Checks should be written out to: "American Friends of IDC," with "for GLORIA" included in the memo line, and mailed to: GLORIA Center American Friends of IDC 116 East 16th Street, 11th Floor New York, NY 10003 The Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center

For a politically rising Japan that is beginning to shed its pacifist blinkers, India is central to both its economic-revival and security-building strategies.

my observation: we should get the japanese to invest in an industrial corridor from vizhinjam/trivandrum (deep-water container port) to tuticorin port (bay of bengal port that will become more significant over time). this will energize the arid land in tirunelveli district, and create a big competitor to the container ports in dubai, colombo and singapore.

For a politically rising Japan that is beginning to shed its pacifist blinkers, India is central to both its economic-revival and security-building strategies.

Brahma Chellaney, The Hindu newsaper, November 27, 2013

Asia's balance of power will be determined principally by events in East Asia and the Indian Ocean. In this light, the emerging Indo-Japanese entente is likely to help shape Asia's strategic future as much as China's ascent or America's Asian "pivot." Japan and India, as Asia's natural-born allies, have a pivotal role to play in preserving stability and helping to safeguard vital sea-lanes in the wider Indo-Pacific region — a region defined not only by the confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but also by its significance as the global trade and energy-supply hub.

LANDMARK EVENT

The India visit of Japan's Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko from November 30 promises to be a landmark event in the already fast-developing partnership between Asia's two leading democracies, which are strategically located on opposite flanks of the continent. In the more than 2,600-year history of the Japanese monarchy — the world's oldest continuous hereditary royalty — no emperor has been to India, although India has traditionally been referred to in Japan as Tenjiku, or the heavenly country.

Customarily, the Japanese Emperor's visit to any country is highly significant because it symbolises a watershed in relations with that nation. It was in recognition of the momentous nature of the royal trip that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointed Ashwini Kumar as his special envoy with Cabinet rank in August to "prepare for the upcoming visit" of the imperial couple, and for Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's visit early next year. Indeed, the India tour could be the last overseas visit of Emperor Akihito, who has undergone coronary and prostate-cancer surgeries in the past decade and will turn 80 a couple of weeks after he returns home from Chennai.

India has been specially chosen for an imperial visit to signal Japan's commitment to forge closer ties. Japan is already doing more for India than any other economic partner of this country: it is the largest source of aid, and is playing a key role in helping India to improve its poor infrastructure, as illustrated by the Japanese-financed Western Freight Corridor, the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, and the Bangalore Metro Rail Project. Tokyo is also keen to add concrete strategic content to the bilateral ties.

The relationship, remarkably free of any strategic dissonance or bilateral dispute, traces its roots to the introduction of Buddhism in Japan in the 6th century CE. The Todaiji Temple in the ancient capital city of Nara is home to Japan's most famous and biggest statue — a great gilt bronze image of Lord Buddha. The statue's allegorical eyes-opening ceremony in 752 CE was conducted by a priest from India in the presence of Emperor Shômu, who declared himself a servant of the "Three Treasures" — the Buddha, the Buddhist law, and the monastic order. Japan's cultural heritage from India via China extends to Sanskrit influence on the Japanese language.

Japanese still bless a newly married couple by reciting an ancient proverb that they are the best bride and bridegroom across the three kingdoms of Kara (China), Tenjiku (India) and Hinomoto (Japan). Akihito is not unfamiliar with India: A year and a half after marrying Michiko — the daughter of a wealthy businessman — he came to India in 1960 as the crown prince, along with his wife. During that visit, he laid the cornerstone of New Delhi's India International Centre and planted a sapling at the Japanese Embassy that has grown into a huge tree.

Today, the contrast between the disciplined Japanese society and tumultuous India could not be more striking. India has the world's largest youthful population, while Japan is ageing more rapidly than any other developed country. And whereas India has always valued strategic autonomy, Japan remains a model U.S. ally that hosts not only a large U.S. troop presence but also pays generously for the upkeep of the American forces on its soil.

Yet, the dissimilarities between the two countries increase the potential for close collaboration. Japan's heavy-manufacturing base and India's services-led growth — as well as their contrasting age structures — make their economies complementary, opening the path to generating strong synergies. India's human capital and Japan's financial and technological power can be a good match to help drive India's infrastructure development and great-power aspirations, and catalyse Japan's revival as a world power.

'NATURAL AND INDISPENSABLE'

For India, Japan is a critical source of capital and commercial technology. Indeed, there cannot be a better partner for India's development than the country that was the first non-western society to modernise and emerge as a world power, spearheading Asia's industrial and technological advances since the 19th century. Dr. Singh has underscored the importance of also building security collaboration with it, saying Indians "see Japan as a natural and indispensable partner in our quest for stability and peace in the vast" Indo-Pacific region.

For a politically rising Japan that is beginning to shed its pacifist blinkers, India is central to both its economic-revival and security-building strategies. After prolonged economic stagnation, Japan faces difficult challenges, including a shrinking population, a spiralling public debt, a fundamentally deflationary environment, and a security dilemma compounded by constraints arsing from the U.S.-imposed, post-war Constitution. However, Mr. Abe's dynamic leadership and control of both houses of parliament is aiding his moves to place Japan on the right track.

Japan and India, as energy-poor countries heavily reliant on oil imports from the unstable Persian Gulf region, are seriously concerned over mercantilist efforts to assert control over energy supplies and the transport routes for them. So the maintenance of a peaceful and lawful maritime domain, including unimpeded freedom of navigation, is critical to their security and economic well-being. That is why they have moved from emphasising shared values to seeking to protect shared interests, including by holding joint naval exercises.

These facts explain why India and Japan boast the fastest-growing bilateral relationship in Asia today. Since they unveiled a "strategic and global partnership" in 2006, their political and economic engagement has deepened at a remarkable pace. Their free-trade pact, formally known as the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), came into force in 2011. They have even established an alliance to jointly develop rare-earth minerals so as to reduce their dependence on China.

The level and frequency of India-Japan official engagement have become extraordinary. In addition to holding an annual Prime Minister-level summit, the two also conduct several yearly ministerial dialogues: A strategic dialogue between their Foreign Ministers; a security dialogue between their Defence Ministers; a policy dialogue between India's Commerce Minister and Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry; and separate ministerial-level energy and economic dialogues. And, to top it off, they also hold a trilateral strategic dialogue with the United States.

According to Dr. Singh, "India and Japan have a shared vision of a rising Asia." Translating that vision into practice demands strengthening their still-fledgling strategic cooperation and working together to ensure a pluralistic, stable Asian order.

Japan, in keeping with its pacifist Constitution, does not possess offensive systems, such as nuclear submarines, large aircraft carriers, and long-range missiles. But with the world's sixth largest defence budget, it has a formidable defensive capability, an impressive armament-production base, and Asia's largest naval fleet, including top-of-the-line conventional subs, large helicopter-carrying destroyers, and Aegis-equipped cruisers capable of shooting down ballistic missiles.

India — the world's largest arms importer that desperately needs to develop an indigenous arms-production capability — must forge closer defence ties with Japan, including co-developing weapon systems and working together on missile defence. The most stable economic partnerships in the world, such as the Atlantic community and the Japan-U.S. partnership, have been built on the bedrock of security collaboration. Economic ties that lack the underpinning of strategic partnerships tend to be less stable and even volatile, as is apparent from China's economic relationships with India, Japan and the U.S. Through close strategic collaboration, Japan and India must lead the effort to build freedom, prosperity and stability in the Indo-Pacific region.

Against this background, the Emperor's visit promises to live up to Mr. Abe's hope of being a "historic event." It is likely to herald an enduring Indo-Japanese strategic partnership.

(Brahma Chellaney, a geostrategist, is the author, most recently, of Water, Peace, and War)

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

After nine excruciatingly painful years all those accused in the sankararaman murder case were acquitted today by the Pondicherry court. Both acharyas of the Kanchi matham have been acquitted by the court. But this is not closure for me; not for me. Not until I see karma in action.

My problem is I dont forget - anything. Not the government, the individuals nor the param bhaktas of the matham who caused the crisis in the first place.

The acharyas have been acquitted but how can these creatures atone for arresting them, for incarcerating them and for drugging Pujya periava and making a video of Pujya acharya falling down as he was speaking. Above all Pujya Acharya's heath has failed.

Bhaktas of the matham have been silenced just as Aurobindo was silenced, by brutal political power. But not me, not me. Yesterday the unspeakably vile brother of the unspeakably vile Nakkeeran Gopal called up a bhakta and posed an unspeakably vile question. This gentle mild mannered man replied politely and hung up.

It is a real pity that these creatures dont cross my path. Lastly the bhaktas who have shed tears of blood, who have stopped celbrating anything in life, how can the rascals who caused this tragedy to happen, how can they atone for the tears of bhaktas?

I charge all those who stood silently without doing anything, those who abandoned the matham and the acharyas in the time of tragedy as being worse than the polity which caused the tragedy.

The acharyas, for their bhaktas are mata pita guru and bhagwan and so are untouched by evil. But bhakti has been defiled, bhaktas have been heartbroken. So, I will not forgive; not for seven janmas. And considering the intensity of my anger seven janmas may not be long enough to forget. RR

As Tejpal staunchly claims that he is a victim being targeted by the BJP, many of his former associates are distancing themselves from him - although some like Rahul Singh still continue to stand by him:

With so many of Tehelka's employees now jumping ship - running for the "protest boat" - it seems they doth protest too late. Tehelka is being criticized for not having in place an appropriate forum for complainants to bring their grievances to, including over sexual harassment. In which case, how come these suddenly pious employees who are only just now quitting Tehelka in protest were not previously compelling management to set up such things? Seems to me like they themselves never cared about whether these Vishaka guidelines were enforced, and only want to pass the buck onto management. Had they spoken up before to get these things created in their workplace, then maybe Tejpal would have thought twice before committing his acts. Lefties love to preach to others and hold everyone else to their high moral standards, but never put any onus of accountability on themselves.

It appears that the deleterious effects of infiltration by indoctrinated pseudo-liberal "justices" such as Rajinder Sachar, Ranganath Mishra et al has taken a toll - the result of which is de facto compliance with Sharia law by the Indian judiciary.

Otherwise, the gratuitous references to the ROP's book while delivering a judgement in a run of the mill criminal case is inexplicable?

Are the Talwars adherents of the ROP? Were the deceased individuals initiated into the ROP?

If not, what is the context for this pronouncement? Other than affliction of the Dhimmi judge by a phenomenon described by some as "mental circumcision"or simply "Dhimmitude".

In his 204-page judgement, Additional sessions judge Shyam Lal said the couple had flouted the "ferocious penal code of the land" and had breached the commandment "thou shall not kill" and the injunction of the Holy Quran, "take not life which God has made sacred".

Monday, November 25, 2013

Tarun Tejpal has requested that the investigation of him be transferred away from the Goa Police, claiming that the rape charges filed against him are the "wrath of vengeance unleashed by the senior-most political executive of Goa.”

Feeling betrayed by news of Tejpal's vile act of rape, Ms. Arundhati Roy, the Goddess of Swelled Heads has decided to egotistically conflate her predicament by equating it with that of the young female journalist who suffered Tejpal's sexual assault.

Complaining that Tejpal's betrayal of her ideals was 'Rape No.2', Arundhati wails that she was forced to speak up out of her worries that her silence would undermine her reputation, given her past association with someone who is now an accused rapist.

Oh, you poor dear victim, Miss Arundhati Roy. Obviously your plight must be as serious as the young lady who was assaulted in the elevator. How deserving you are of everyone's sympathy. NOT!

Miss Egotistical Roy, if you feel embarrassed at your association with Tejpal, then you have only yourself to blame for trusting and joining hands with a demagogue whom so many of us have criticized as a fake in the past. These hot air-blowing posers are easily identifiable, and your blindness to his false character is no less than your blindness to your own. How ridiculous and self-centred of you to conflate your own feelings of disillusionment about Tejpal with the violation he inflicted upon his employee. Once again, Miss Roy, you show us that you are all about yourself - as usual.

THiNK Fest, which is at the centre of the controversy over the alleged rape attempt by the founder and editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine Tarun Tejpal on a woman journalist, is organised by an entity called Thinkworks Pvt Ltd, which is entirely owned by Tejpal, his sister Neena Tejpal and the magazine's managing editor Shoma Chaudhary.

The only association of Thinkworks with Anant Media Pvt Ltd, which publishes Tehelka, is that it buys advertisement space from the magazine, though the sponsors said their understanding was that THiNK Fest was organised by Tehelka magazine.

Neena Tejpal told The Indian Express, "It is a different company and the only tie-up we have is we use Tehelka's ad space." When pointed out that the THiNK Fest website uses Tehelka's brand name, she said, "No, it never used the brand name. It's always been a different entity."

Thinkworks is one of the five companies promoted by Tarun Tejpal since 2006. Two of the firms are in hospitality industry. Started in February 2010, a year before the first THiNK Fest, Thinkworks is the most profitable business of the five with a gross revenue of Rs 14.2 crore as on March 31 this year. According to the filings with the Registrar of Companies (RoC), Tarun Tejpal has 80 per cent stake in Think-works, while Neena Tejpal and Suparana Chaudhary have 10 per cent stake each. Suparana Chaudhary is the official name of the managing editor of Tehelka magazine, who is better known by her pen name Shoma Chaudhary.

The RoC filings show that for the financial year ending March 2013, each shareholder got a return of Rs 398 per share, amounting to Rs 1.99 crore. And the "advertisement and publicity expense", if one goes by Neena Tejpal's account, including the payment to Tehelka for the ad space was Rs 1.99 crore. Another major expense of Thinkworks is shown as payment of Rs 1.79 crore for "Employee Benefits Expenses", which includes salary of Rs 1.78 crore.

A spokesperson for Essar, the principal sponsor of THiNK Fest since 2011, told The Indian Express, "Our understanding of the event is that it is organised by Tehelka magazine." A senior official in Kerala Tourism Department, a co-sponsor, shared the Essar spokesperson's view.

Though Tarun Tejpal was the promoter of Anant Media, which publishes Tehelka and allied publications, he and his immediate family owns only 23.25 per cent stake in it and Shoma Chaudhary owns 1,000 shares or 0.5 per cent stake.

Till March 31, 2011, Tejpal and his family and friends held approximately 47 per cent stake in Anant Media. In 2009-10, the firm was making a loss of Rs 39.5 crore, which increased to Rs 55 crore in 2010-11 and then to Rs 66 crore the following year. It was during this time that industrialist and Rajya Sabha member K D Singh brought in investment to Anant Media through direct and indirect holding.

RoC filings show that in 2010-11, there was share application money, on the account of the premium payable on shares to be issued, amounting to Rs 27.7 crore lying with Anant Media. In 2011-12, the K D Singh-controlled Royal Building and Infrastructure Pvt LtD, which is based in Chandigarh, became a shareholder through addition equity infusion into Anant Media through 1,01,371 shares. In 2011-12, the share premium account shows an infusion of Rs 25.3 crore.

This implies that 1,01,371 shares of Anant Media, which suffered a loss of Rs 55 crore the previous financial year, was bought at a premium of Rs 5,228.3 per share. With the fresh equity infusion, Royal Building and Infrastructure owns 65.75 per cent stake in Anant Media, becoming the majority shareholder of the publishers of Tehelka Magazine. Royal Building and Infrastructure also extended an unsecured loan of Rs 19.6 crore through inter corporate deposit to Anant Media in 2011-12. The investments, including the unsecured loan totaling Rs 72 crore from K D Singh, helped Tehelka cut its losses to Rs 13 crore in 2012.

Despite repeated attempts, K D Singh was not available for comments on the valuation of the investments.

K D Singh and Tejpal have one more business tie-up — they both serve as directors in Amaraman India Private Limited, a firm promoted by Tejpal in March last year. The firm's filing for last year shows a worth of Rs 2 lakh. Neena Tejpal, the chief operating officer of Anant Media, is a director in Amaraman.

the iran peace deal is big news, too bad india never had its act together to act as broker between the US and iran (as pak did between nixon and china). it will make things harder for pak, and for saudi, which is why there is the chance that the sino-islamist axis will get stronger.

Makes perfect sense. Marxism/Communism/Maoist is an enslaving death cult.

Case in point: Susan "Arundhati" Roy - loud advocate of "tribal" rights etc. - found guilty of encroaching on a large area of protected forest land in a Vanvaasi area to build her private farmhouse - no doubt, to practise collective farming.

From what I see, this is now only possible because Nawaz Sharif is in power in Islamabad, and he's busy trying to clip the Pak Army's wings. Pak Army has been using its clandestine and irregular forces to inflame the situation on the LoC with India, in order to stoke up nationalism and rally more Pakistanis to its side. But they still don't have the power to carry out full-scale military offensives, so all they can do is resort to low-level irritation. An understanding between ourselves and Sharif can allow us to build a wall that will block Pak Army's low-level attacks, and keep J&K stable. This helps to thwart Pak Army's desire to keep the Indian Army tied down in internal peacekeeping operations. We can then secure the LoC and ensure normalcy in J&K, and meanwhile Sharif gets to assert his authority over the Pak Army to keep his own job secure. All we have to do is watch out for any tunnels that appear and blow them up, preferably with the jihadis inside them.

At this point, everything the victim has said sounds totally convincing, while Tejpal's and Chaudhry's actions and statements look like a lot of squirming and wriggling by cornered rats. The court of public opinion will hang them.

India can't afford to emulate China. Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra says the country's states must compete, not march in lockstep, if India is to develop its own path to sustainable prosperity.

November 2013 | by Anand Mahindra

When I listen to pundits, economists, and multinational CEOs talk about India, often I detect a familiar note of frustration. India, they insist, should be blasting upward like a rocket, its growth rate ascending higher and higher, bypassing that of a slowing China's. India's population is younger than that of its Asian rival and still growing. Its democratic government enjoys greater legitimacy; its businesspeople are more internationally adept. And yet the Indian rocket continues to sputter in a low-altitude orbit—growing respectably at 5 to 7 percent each year but never breaking through to sustained double-digit growth.

Video

Reimagining India: A conversation with Anand Mahindra

In this video, Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra explains why India's states must drive the country's economic growth.

According to this way of thinking, India is an underachiever, perversely holding itself back—and needs only to fire some particular afterburner in order to get its rocket to full speed. The government needs to go on an infrastructure building spree, or open the door to big-box retailers. Political parties need to crack down on corruption and nepotism. Farmers need to adopt smartphones. Something will trigger the long-awaited boom, and the billions in foreign direct investment (FDI) that have flowed to China over the last two decades will at last head south.

If we continue to judge India's progress by China's, using metrics like FDI and GDP growth, or statistics like the kilometers of highway and millions of apartments built, we will continue to be branded a laggard. India's messy coalition governments are not suddenly about to become as efficient and decisive as China's technocrat-led Politburo. Nor should that be the goal.

Moreover, India simply cannot afford to grow like China has over the last two decades. In authoritarian, tightly controlled China, the costs of that headlong economic expansion are obvious. Unbreathable air and undrinkable milk, slick-palmed officials and oppressive factory bosses provoke tens of thousands of protests each year. In a society as diverse as India's—riven by religious, community, and caste divides—those kinds of tensions can easily erupt in violence and disorder. Already the battle between haves and have-nots is driving a powerful rural insurgency across nearly a third of the country. Labor riots can turn into religious pogroms. Farmer protests can turn into class wars.

For India's economy to expand as rapidly and yet more sustainably than China's, we need to make our differences into virtues rather than vulnerabilities. For too long we have clung to a mind-set shaped by the early independence years, when the areas in the northwest and northeast had become Pakistan, and India's first government was struggling to weave a patchwork of provinces and maharaja-run kingdoms into a nation. In those days, the risk that India might break apart was very real. One of India's great accomplishments is that no one worries about that anymore. Indeed, the idea of a united India runs so broad and deep that it allows us to consider a counterintuitive way of thinking about growth—that the best way to propel the economy may be to encourage different parts of the country to go their own way.

I'm not suggesting secession, of course. But there's no sense in pretending that "India" is a single investment destination or even a coherent, unified economic entity. India's 28 states and seven territories are as different from one another—as varied in language, food, culture, and level of development—as the nations of Europe. In some ways, Gujarat has more in common with Germany than with Bihar. Companies understand this. When they make decisions about where to locate factories or R&D hubs, they're looking at the tax policies, physical and legal infrastructure, or labor costs in the particular state they're considering—not at some mythical "India" visible only at Davos. We should be celebrating and encouraging these differences.

Certain states will be able to exploit these new powers better than others, of course, just as certain provinces on China's eastern seaboard have raced ahead of compatriots inland. But in India, success can inspire competition and push laggards to reform—as Bihar, say, has begun to. Though it started from a very low base, the Bihar government's focus on improving basic governance by providing security and enforcing the rule of law has made a remarkable difference. For years, Bihar and three other troubled north Indian states—Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh—were collectively dismissed as BIMARU. The acronym, formed from the first letters of each state, was a wry put-down because it sounded like the Hindi word bimar, or "sick." These days, the term no longer serves; not only does Bihar show new vigor, but Madhya Pradesh is now regularly included in rankings of India's best-run states.

All Indian states will have to improve their infrastructure and climate for doing business if they want to contend for major projects. In this way, investment will drive innovation and changes to the system much more efficiently than any edict from Delhi could. Tata Motors' decision to shift its Nano project from West Bengal to Gujarat illustrates the point.

We should encourage a similar competition between cities as well as states. India's biggest long-term challenge, like China's, is to figure out how to urbanize a population of more than a billion people. Millions have already migrated to the cities in the last two decades, and tens of millions more will soon follow. We cannot hope to stem this flow. Nor should we want to—urbanized societies produce an array of positive outcomes, from higher literacy rates to lower infant mortality. At the same time, if we don't slow the influx of migrants to a dozen or so key urban centers, our already volatile and overburdened cities will collapse under the strain.

India needs to find a way to distribute growth—to create new urban hubs all over the country that can attract talent and money. Even if government had the power to bulldoze neighborhoods and erect forests of skyscrapers, as some seem to wish, it would struggle to surmount the challenges currently facing big cities like Mumbai and Bangalore. At double or triple the population, those megacities would become ungovernable. We need to break these problems into manageable pieces, developing hundreds, even thousands of smaller cities around the country where the problems of water, transit, power, and governance can be negotiated at the local level. India's sprawling subcontinent can never become a plus-size Singapore. But perhaps we can weave together an urban web that is the equivalent of a thousand Singapores.

Technology is making this more than a fantasy. Given how much India has benefited from the way fiber-optic cables have already shrunk the world, we should be quick to see the opportunities in shrinking the subcontinent, too. With widespread 4G connectivity, many businesses will be able to operate from anywhere. That will create an advantage for locations emphasizing efficiency and livability. Workers will be able to perform their tasks closer to home, if not actually at home, thus relieving pressure on India's roads and bridges. Even manufacturing can be distributed, once technologies like 3-D printing become more widespread. Populations of laborers will no longer need to cluster around big factories. Indeed, once every home can become a manufacturing hub, the kind of small enterprises that have been the backbone of the traditional Indian economy could find ways to thrive in the modern world.

Forced to compete for talent and for business, cities will have to experiment and innovate. Several corporations, including Mahindra, have begun exploring new ways to live, work, and play in planned enclaves like Mahindra World City outside Chennai. While these efforts are continuing, the government, too, should foster and support such experimentation as a matter of urban policy. Already the government taxes coal and fossil fuels used in the power and transportation industries, and offers tax incentives for renewable energy and nonpolluting vehicles. But we can go further, finding new ways to use technology to improve and expand the delivery of government services. The government's Unique Identification project, which uses biometric data such as photographs, fingerprints, and retinal scans to create cost-effective and easily verifiable ID numbers for all Indian residents, is an excellent example of how government can leverage technology to help India's citizens. These new numbers will make it easier for Indians to pay taxes, collect government benefits, and receive other government services. They also will help prevent fraud, bribery, vote rigging, and illegal immigration, as well as facilitate the delivery of many private-sector services.

India's new cities will be its afterburners, the catalysts sparking new bursts of growth. The innovations developed in each scattered enclave will be emulated and improved upon elsewhere, and thus give rise to innovation. Rather than directing where capital should go, or funding white-elephant infrastructure projects, the central government should set the rules of the game and then step back.

What India needs from the world as much as investment dollars are bold thinkers who can help to define these new ways of living. We should seek out these visionaries, give them a platform to test their theories, and invite them not to build gaudy skyscrapers but to help develop new ways for the human race to live. Foreign direct ideas should be as valued a commodity as traditional FDI.

The world has a stake in India's success—and not just because of the need for someone to pick up the slack from a slowing China. Much of the developing world faces the same challenges India does. The solutions developed here—the answers to almost metaphysical questions about how societies should work and grow—will have worldwide relevance.

For better or worse, India is where the future will be made. Let's get it right.

On the night of 22nd of November 2013, a member of Mr Tejpal's immediate family came to my mother's house in New Delhi, asking my mother to protect Mr Tejpal and demanded to know 1) who I was seeking legal help from and 2) what I "wanted" as the result of my complaint of sexual molestation by Mr Tejpal, that was made to the Tehelka management earlier this week.

This visit has placed tremendous emotional pressure on my family and I at an intensely traumatic time. I fear this may be the beginning of a period of further intimidation and harassment.

I call upon all persons connected to Mr. Tejpal and his associates to refrain from approaching me or my family members.

I'm surprised that Tejpal's wife is standing by him, despite the humiliation he's inflicted on her.

With Tejpal insisting he is being framed by "political forces", Chaudhry is now insisting that the victim's version of events is not necessarily the true version of what happened. Looks like they're circling the wagons and preparing to fight their way out of this.

Here's an interesting account on the rise and sudden fall of Tarun Tejpal:

Which political forces, he's not told us - but I'm not holding my breath over who he's referring to. Looks like it's time to start shrieking "RSS" and calling for Tejpal to be defended for the sake of "sekoolarism".

Perhaps it's because the pre-requisite for any alliance among nations is to have your own nation and sense of nationalism in the first place. Because India is politically still in a pre-national state and has yet to evolve into a real nation where national interests predominate, we're still stuck with party-first and tribal-first politics, which eschews any attempt to put anything ahead of party, factional, or tribal interests.

It is extremely painful for me to
write this email to you – I have struggled with finding an easier way to
say it, but there isn’t one. The editor in chief of Tehelka, Tarun
Tejpal, sexually assaulted me at Think on two occasions last week.

From the very first moment, I
wanted to call you, or find you and tell you what he had done to me –
but given how absorbed you were at Think; preparing for and conducting
sessions, and the fact that it was impossible for the two of us to get
even a minute alone together, I could not. To add to this, I had to
process the fact that it was Tarun who molested me — my father’s ex
colleague and friend, Tiya’s dad, and someone I had so deeply respected
and admired for so many years.

Both times, I returned to my room
in a completely distraught condition, trembling and crying. I went
straight to Shougat and Ishan’s room, where I called G Vishnu and told
them what had been done to me. (All three of them are copied on this
email.

You can contact them for any
clarifications you see necessary). The second time he molested me, I
even told Tiya what happened. When he heard I’d told Tiya (she
confronted him), he lashed out at me, and I became truly terrified of
what he would do. I avoided him in all situations except in rooms full
of people, until I checked out of Think on Sunday.

As of Saturday evening, he sent me
text messages insinuating that I misconstrued “a drunken banter”. That
is not what happened. Banter does not involve forcing yourself on
someone, trying to disrobe them, and penetrate them with your fingers
despite them pleading for you to stop.

As you read through the details of
what happened in the attachment to this mail, I hope you will also
understand how traumatic and terrifying it has been for me to report
this to you — and yet how critical it is that Tehelka constitute an anti
sexual harassment cell as per the Vishakha guidelines immediately, to
investigate this matter.

At the very least, I will need a
written apology from Mr Tejpal and an acknowledgement of the same to be
circulated through the organization. It cannot be considered acceptable
for him to treat a female employee in this way.

From the email, it seems pretty clear that the victim's allegation of sexual assault is about more than groping or lewd remarks. This is quite unambiguously an allegation of rape. And yet Tehelka's acting editor Shoma Chaudhry decided that the police should not be informed, later justifying it as an attempt to protect the victim's privacy. So, dear Shoma, if Tarun had struck again and sexually attacked someone else, how would your little coverup have prevented that? He'd already attacked the same victim twice, and then threatened her if she exposed him.

Since he hasn't fled the country yet, Delhi's Congress govt has now despatched a police security team to guard their precious VIP friend Tarun Tejpal from any public hostility.

In an interview in 2007, this is how the now-disgraced editor of Tehelka and a leading member of the Psecularati, Tarun Tejpal justified the Godhra train burning incident.

I mean, our investigation reveals that what seems to have happened is that on the railway station at Godhra, there was an altercation between the pilgrims and Muslim hawkers who were selling their wares on the platform. And there was, it seems, an attempt to abduct a young Muslim girl by these pilgrims. Then, in the course of it, altercation. Then, when the train leaves the station, it seems somebody pulls the chain to stop the train, and Muslim mobs from the adjoining slums arrive in large numbers and attack that particular buggy. And in the course of this entire assault, the buggy gets burned down, tragically killing these fifty-nine pilgrims.

Notice how the 59 Hindus who were killed are casually mentioned as though their deaths should be mentioned only as part the footnote. Also notice that the alleged attempt to abduct a Muslim girl is presented as a sufficient reason to torch 59 innocent Hindus to death.
What one cannot notice on reading the above account is that although Tarun Tejpal's actions are real, his allegations of an attempted abduction by the pilgrims at Godhra are wholly imaginary. Even his claim that the description of the sequence of events resulted from Tehelka's investigation is a fabricated claim.
The claim about the abduction was put up soon after the Godhra train attack on an Islamist website named ummahnews.com, and an embellished version of this claim did the rounds as a chain email. The email was carefully worded to make it appear authentic and it even listed the names of two reporters, Anil Soni and Neelam Soni, along with their telephone numbers. We know that these claims on the website and in the email are false because two intrepid journalists, Rajeev Srinivasan and Varsha Bhosle, in the interest of arriving at the truth, contacted the reporters named in the email and were told that the allegations were bogus.
Tejpal's claim that the story about the abduction of the girl was the result of Tehelka's investigation is not only dishonest but also amounts to plagiarism from an email authored by an unknown person. This would have mattered to him if he was interested in the truth, but seeking the truth has never been the intent of the Psecularati.
In a strange twist of fate, Rajeev Srinivasan's article is entitled PredatoryIntelligentsia. Tarun Tejpal has now shown himself to be a predator and not just in the intellectual sense. He not only seems to have planned the vicious attack on the helpless young woman—someone old enough to be his daughter and someone who has known him since her childhood— but seems to have stalked her and followed up his attack with intimidating threats. His actions have resulted in a strange response from the Psecularati. Salil Tripathi, a leftist who was once on the payroll of Amnesty International, has now written, "…if Tejpal is innocent, he should return with his honour intact to the editorship of Tehelka."
It is highly unlikely that this young lady was Tejpal's first victim as his behavior does not seem to be an exception to the rule among the editors in the Psecularati. In 1999, Rediff carried an article by Krishna Prasad entitled Editor the Great. The article described an editor stalking a young journalist and harassing her. The title of the article hints at the name of the editor. While the entire article makes for disturbing reading, what is even more disturbing yet again is the silence from the Psecularati which has not revealed the name of the editor. It is important that the victim of that editor come forward and identify the editor. The country should stand by her if the media gangs up against her. This is the only way that we can fight crimes against women in the media and elsewhere.
It is not that members of the Psecularati don't know the names of editors who treat women as sex objects and use intimidation and other bullying tactics against them. Apparently, this behavior is part of the Psecularati subculture, and the names of those who harass and molest women is common knowledge among both Indian journalists and foreign journalists stationed in India. When members of this club write about violence against women, it is supposedly a private joke among them in some bizarre way which only they can comprehend. The more dramatic the description of a rape, the more laughs it is supposed to elicit among the Psecularati journalists.
While it can in no way be proved that it was intended as a private joke for the Psecularati, Celia Dugger, a New York Times journalist who has a history of cooking up sordid stories against Hindus and who has quoted Tarun Tejpal in her articles, once wrote a fantastic piece of fiction while describing the riots in Gujarat.

Young women were stripped and raped in broad daylight, then doused with kerosene and set on fire. A pregnant woman's belly was slit open, her fetus raised skyward on the tip of a sword and then tossed onto one of the fires that blazed across the city.

Mixing fictional descriptions into what is supposed to be factual reporting is by no means exclusive to the New York Times. In the New York Review of Books, Pankaj Mishra (who also writes for the New York Times) rationalized the carnage of Hindus by writing, "Hindu activists were said to have tried to kidnap a Muslim girl and take her into their carriage." Guess where Mishra got this from? Tarun Tejpal?
The justification of the Godhra train firebombing raises an important question. In the light of the revelations about the rape of a young journalist by Tarun Tejpal, does it now mean that it would be okay for mobs of people to descend upon Tehelka's office and burn it down?

Thursday, November 21, 2013

After learning that Tarun Tejpal sexually assaulted a female journalist, Tehelka editor Shoma Chaudhry refuses to go to police on what is clearly a matter for criminal investigation, insisting that the "internal panel" constituted by her is the better route. Really?!! Tehelka prefers its own judge and jury, and sees no obligation to involve police when a crime has occurred.

Clearly, she would not be so confident if she wasn't being backed by the ruling party.When a sexual assault occurs, it is not for any company official, whether an editor or whatever, to be second-guessing the need to report the crime to the police. Clearly, sexual assault is a criminal matter, and anyone management who receive such a complaint from an employee have an obligation to involve the police immediately. It is for the police to make the determination of who did right or wrong, and not for any mere management to do so. This is basic due diligence, and Shoma Chaudhry should be held criminally liable over this, because they were trying to avoid a criminal investigation.

“Self-proclaimed atonement and recusal for a period are hardly the remedies for what the allegations show to be outright criminality.”

A bad lapse of judgment, an awful misreading of the
situation, have led to an unfortunate incident that rails against all we believe in and fight for
Unfortunate incident? An author of Tejpal’s calibre should have chosen better words to describe
alleged rape under the new law

I have already
unconditionally apologised
for my misconduct to the
concerned journalist, but I feel impelled to atone further.
Impelled to atone? Has anyone been more regal while referring to what
he did to hisdaughter’s best friend?

I feel atonement cannot be just words. I must do the penance that
lacerates me. I am therefore offering to recuse myself from the
editorship of Tehelka, and from the Tehelka office, for the next six
months.
Rarely has an
accused judged himself and
then sentenced himself to a
six-month vacation